poisoned, we come to some grim and necessary questions. For instance, now the question of WHAT or WHO will fill this void where the wild vibrations -- physical and vocal -- are being replaced rather systematically with the purr of oil-fed engines and the beeping cry of bulldozers and tractors.
Will we leave it to the machines? Will we allow the ghosts of wild herds and flocks to become metal, rubber, vinyl, with radios and radial tires, a billion miles of asphalt at their command? And billions of acres of trees and prairies and oceans to silence? In my quest for a (Soma)tic praxis, Iijima remains a constant inspiration. It is the poets and other artists who must fill the gap of the dying wildness, enrich the chilled, human sepulchral.
Brenda Iijima's "PANTHERING" in her amazing new book IF NOT METAMORPHIC, answers before the question has been asked of us. Her genius is tenfold in this transfiguring transmigration of inter-species souls. Iijima takes the request for empathy up an unexpected notch, she simply says BECOME THEM! She says YOU ARE THEM ANYWAY SO BECOME THEM ACCEPT THEM ACCEPT YOUR OWN! Her insistence for the instantaneous maturity of the human conscience is a battle cry to keep what we have alive.
----Hail havoc
We exchanged feline brains----
---- A twin incarnate coat
Cerebellum wished----
Changed into globe
To spin worlds
Minus'
Topple
Glassy
Hopes
Biases
Arise
Around
Antimatter
Spry
----Duchess of forearm agape
----Clever nebulae which govern literacy
I cling unapologetically to liberty (macro)----
Tiny pewter speck
Been dead, bones heave
As slay coats each mirror morning
Muscles and nerves alternating liberty's current
Other epidermis orders leather
Hierarchy subject to anarchy
Iijima's choice for the fierce carnivore brings to mind the Latin American nickname for the black panther: DIABLO, out of respect for her rule of the forests and jungles. RULER OF THIS WORLD, Diablo. Taking up the Hecate of this dimension, Iijima claws apart to the very ends of our worst decisions for this world.
Genocide's kitchen
Perilous thunderdome
Action
Figure
Prosthetics reach anywhere
For story material
Alarm is a sort of deafness
Ah shucks! We made this too
Poisonous
Return to sender
Or
Deploy a weapon, which (what)
EVER
Political act of breathing or one drop of water
Cut into vapor
Iijima and I have discussed aligning ourselves our bodies our homes our everything to divulging the path out of a selfish world bent on destruction. In "PANTHERING" Iijima shows a path, lit clear.
Illusion replacing illusion ad infinitum
Ever the while spinning
Found in the town landfill, o so beautiful
Neuromuscular system was the least bit rubbed by acid rain
Ready to be programmed in a plangent way
Charge it up differential wax figure
So much trash to be recycled
The black fur coat I was grew forlorn
I couldn't hide in the snow
Domestication's velocity stunned
A docile patch of seeming calm
These yellow eyes can't lie
Like war rooms exuding perjury
This was a difficult year to choose just one poem for this award. There are so many
amazing books, and we're living in a rich time for poetry, and in that a space for poetry unflinchingly awake. Brenda Ijima's poem "PANTHERING" strikes a loud chord for a new and fearless voice. You can find this poem in its entirety in her new book IF NOT METAMORPHIC, which I highly recommend. I love this book, cover to cover!
